400th Anniversary of First Enslaved Africans Brought to America

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. ADAMS. Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to be here tonight, and I want to thank the gentlewoman from California for not only her wisdom and guidance and for leading this session tonight, but for all of the distinguished work that she has done for so many years.

I also congratulate the chair of the CBC, Karen Bass, for the leadership that she is providing, as well as the chair of the Committee on Education and Labor, on which I have the privilege of sitting, Congressman Bobby Scott.

I rise today, Madam Speaker, to join my colleagues in recognition of the 400th anniversary of the first recorded forced arrival of enslaved African people in America.

This anniversary marks the beginning of a legacy of oppression and discrimination, the effects of which we still live with today. From those first 19 Africans who reached Jamestown, upwards to 12 million Africans would be kidnapped from their homes and brought to the new world.

Those men and women had almost everything taken from them: their names, their religion, their families, and their freedom. But the one thing that couldn't be taken from them was their spirit.

The culture and customs that they brought to America leave a heritage for us, their descendants, to be proud of, to recognize how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

We know structural racism in our society didn't end in 1865. We know it didn't end in 1965. We know that there are still racial disparities in access to employment and education and healthcare. We know racial bias persists in our criminal justice system, and we know that pay disparities still exist along racial lines.

The shameful legacy of slavery remains, and it is incumbent upon us, the Joshua generation, to keep us moving forward.

One of the first things we can do to keep us on the path to a more equitable future is to have a full reckoning with our past. It is long past time for us, as a society, to have an open and honest conversation about the lasting effects of slavery in America.

My esteemed colleague Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee picked up the torch and introduced H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, of which I am a proud cosponsor.

We need to have that open national dialogue to come to terms with how we as a nation have not historically lived up to our ideals.

The advocacy of our youth who fight for consideration of this bill is a callback to the fights that made public accommodations open to all races and that made the voting booth open to all as well.

It is a callback to the abolitionists who awakened the public to the horrors of slavery and the Black men who became soldiers to protect and preserve our Union and their freedom.

It is a callback to the 19 Africans who landed in chains on those Virginia shores 400 years ago who never gave up the hope that one day they would once again be free.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source